Impact of Relational Capital on Business Value

Abstract

Intangible resources, or intellectual capital, are currently known to be the drivers of economic growth. Today's society is known as the knowledge-based society. Knowledge is the main strategic resource that is capable in itself of generating new knowledge. Therefore, intangible resources have become the competitiveness base for any company, as their ownership provides the company with the opportunity to generate sustainable competitive advantage and increases the value of the company. One of the most important dimensions of intellectual capital is the relational capital (Prahalad and Ramaswany, 2000). Relational capital is defined as the knowledge embedded in the relationships with any stakeholder that influences the life of the organisation. Relationships with stakeholders are the necessary condition for building, maintaining and renewing resources, structures and processes over time, as firms can access critical and complementary resources through external relationships. Some authors [Prahalad, CK and V Ramaswamy (2000). Co-opting customer competence, Harvard Business Review, 78(1) 79–87.] suggest that the customer has become a new source of obtaining competitive advantage for the organisation. The customer and satisfaction have become the aim of companies as it is only way to attain sustainable performance. Companies that improve their relations with their clients, and the satisfaction of the latter, will therefore achieve a better business performance and will increase their value. There is a gap in the literature about this topic. Few works have been done in this aspect; for that, our research thus seeks to analyse whether customer satisfaction is reflected in the total value of the intangibles. A sample of the main Spanish companies, those quoted on the IBEX-35 (the main index of reference of the Spanish Stock Exchange, comprising the 35 companies with greatest liquidity on the Spanish Stock Exchange) are included and the relationship between the relational capital, measured by satisfaction of customers variable, and the total value of the company has been analysed. A positive relationship is then obtained between both variables, that is, improved customer satisfaction is positively associated with an increased business value, but that is not statistically significant.